


everything's fine

by orphan_account



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Rough Night (2017), Saturday Night Live RPF, The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Ghostbusters References, Saturday Night Live References, friends to lovers to friends, queer identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25696681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: And before she has time to think about the fact that she is, maybe, a little bit in love with Kristen Wiig, Kristen is kissing her, sloppy, wet, leaving lipstick smears down her cheek.And god help her, Kate kisses back.This is basically a snapshot view of Kate's life from just before Ghostbusters to the end of 2019, dealing with themes of queer identity and growing up and friendship.(Fair warning that no one ends up with anyone else in this fic).
Relationships: Kate McKinnon/Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	everything's fine

**Author's Note:**

> This is INSANE and probably really bad, but I worked on it non-stop for about three days over the Christmas holidays last year (2019). I was going through my writing folder and thought I might as well release it into the world for the other like 3 people that like to read SNL RPF.   
> I was really going THRU it regarding my own queer identity and activism and I think you'll find that really comes out in this.   
> I don't really think she's this much of a mess, honestly, and I can only hope and pray she never ever reads this, ha, ha, ha...  
> Enjoy.

_Early 2015_

When her agent calls her with a script, Kate is in the bathroom. She quickly steps out of the shower, dries her hands, and grabs her phone, putting it on speaker so she can get dressed.

"I think you're _really_ going to like this one," her agent says. Kate rolls her eyes. Her agent says that about everything.

But when she gets her hands on the script, she has to suppress a scream of excitement.

She doesn't even read it before she calls her agent back and says _yes yes yes_.

It's _Ghostbusters_.

More information slowly trickles out – first that Leslie (Jones, one of her closest friends!) will be co-starring with her, then Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. Kristen and Melissa are comedy _icons_ , and even though Kate's technically worked with Kristen before, it's still insane. Kate and Leslie hug each other and do a ridiculous dance of their own devising when they find out.

Paul Feig will direct. When she meets with him for the first time alone, he describes his vision of Holtzmann as Kate-to-the-max, and Kate adds, _with better fashion sense, I hope._

They go through hair and make-up and Kate's pretty sure that they've only half-finished whatever they had in mind when she glances up from the astrophysics book on her lap and spies herself in the mirror.

"Stop," she waves the artists away. "This is it. This is her hair."

Paul crows with laughter when she shows him her character's ensemble for the first time.

Then, there's a meeting with the four of them, Paul, and Katie Dippold, and they go over the script. Kate listens as Paul explains his vision of the movie, Katie outlines her visions for each character and the dynamic with the ghosts, and Kate scribbles alternative lines in the margins of her script.

She sees from the corner of her eye that Kristen is doing the same. She looks up and catches Kate's eye and half-smiles before going back to her script.

The next time they're all together is the table read. Kate's had enough time to get starstruck now.

She's already worked out from a few choice annotations on her latest edition of the script that Holtzmann's gay. It's nice to be allowed to be a gay woman, and it's flattering that Paul and Katie basically designed Holtzmann's role for her, but she's _really_ nervous about it.

This isn't some tiny sketch show on Logo. This is a reboot of a cult classic. And she's in it. With Kristen Wiig.

She, of course, has a bit of a tiny, professional crush on Kristen. It's _The_ Kristen Wiig. Come on! She's one of Kate's comedy idols.

They were only on SNL for a couple of episodes together, but Kate was barely able to get two words out when they talked outside of sketches. 

When they did Kristen's leaving tribute, Kate couldn't bring herself to actually touch her – she's watched it back once and she looks so awkward and young hiding behind Nasim as she air-kisses Kristen's hair.

So, she's a little hesitant about the table read. Kristen, on the other hand, seems to have no such inhibitions. She jumps up when she sees Kate and wraps her up in a hug.

"How are you?" she says cheerfully, and Kate has to extricate herself gracefully and tell her _good_ and _isn't this exciting_ and _how are you_?

She relaxes as they wait for the others and finds herself genuinely engaged by Kristen, who's an easy conversation partner.

"I'm so glad Paul brought us all together," she says confidently. "I have a really good feeling about this." She leans forward and puts a warm palm on Kate's thigh, and Kate's teensy-tiny professional crush solidifies into a proper _I would give her the best orgasm of her life_ crush.

Uh oh.

_July 2015_

Kate surprises herself with the direction that Holtzmann's character goes in. She was, of course, planning to be kooky and oddball, but her crush on Kristen pokes out the edges, and the costumes that she's given don't help: they scream _gay_.

Paul loves it. He eggs her on, and Kristen is a good sport about it, tolerating Kate's goofy advances and sometimes acknowledging them with subtle lines and touches.

Holtzmann is a bit of an expression of Kate's crush on Kristen, which ebbs and wanes as they film, and a bit of an expression of who she wishes she could be, and a bit of what Kate thinks Holtzmann _should_ be.

She knows she's funny, at least, because her scene partners are often stifling their giggling as she ad-libs lines.

They have a lot of fun; Chris is also an amazing improviser, and they have to stop filming for a solid ten minutes when he puts his finger through his glasses and tells them, "They just kept getting dirty!"

Melissa is gasping for breath and Kate thinks she might _actually_ pee herself from laughing, and Kristen is grasping at Kate's wrist as she waves her other hand in front of her face, tears running into her make-up. They finally get it together and spend a good two hours filming that, and then the Mike Hat scene.

Kate personally thinks Kevin's job interview might be the funniest part of the movie.

The four of them (and Chris) become fast friends quickly, getting to know each other's senses of humour and their boundaries. They often grab lunch or dinner together, sometimes go out for a drink if they're not too exhausted. They try to go altogether, but often only one or two of them aren't required on set, so it's almost never possible.

Kristen and Kate seem to go out alone more often than even Leslie and Kate, but Kate tries not to read too much into it. She begins to learn what makes Kristen's eyes crinkle at the sides, what makes her laugh uncontrollably, what makes her frown, what makes her gesticulate angrily (homophobia, chiefly); all the little things that compose a friendship.

Kristen brings Kate secondhand books on Greek history and nuclear physics and fresco-painting and Spanish and Kate takes her to excellent hole-in-the-wall lunch places and sometimes they do yoga together in her hotel room to realign their spines after carrying the proton packs all day.

The boundaries between the intensity of filming together and flirting become increasingly blurry between the two of them. Kristen will often dig her fingers into Kate's shoulders; Kate will respond with a dirty moan and Leslie will cover her eyes – _I don't need to see you doin' that, McKinnon!_ Kate will bring Kristen special treats when she's filming alone, and hang around set to make her smile when she's exhausted, and she knows Leslie's worried about it, but she tries to ignore it and ride the high of filming.

It's late one night and they've just finished filming a set which will never even see the light of day – Kate and Kristen flirting heavily while talking about _Ghosts of Our Past_ – and they get tacos and sit in a park together. Kate kicks her legs up and down, and Kristen's question is so out of the blue that she nearly drops her taco on her leggings.

"Will you leave Saturday Night Live when your contract is up?"

Kate turns to look at her, blinking on and off. "I don't know."

Kristen nods, and the only sound is the crunching of the taco shells. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done," she says quietly.

"I know."

And Kate remembers the night that Kristen left.

She walked into the women's bathroom at the after-party that night and heard unrestrained sobbing from one of the stalls. She called out _are you okay?_ and Kristen said _I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine_ while choking on sobs, until Kate did the only thing she could think of: sang.

She sang a lullaby until Kristen hiccupped into silence and came out. Kate hugged her and then went into the stall to pee.

They haven't ever talked about it. They've barely seen one another since then. They barely saw one another at the party. Kate, Vanessa, and Nasim went easy in a booth while Kristen, Fred, Jason, and Andy got beyond black-out drunk.

Kristen shares a small smile with Kate as she takes another bite of her taco, and they finish eating in silence.

When Kristen walks her up to her room, there's a beat where Kate half-thinks Kristen might lean in and kiss her, and then it passes. Kristen blushes, stumbling backwards, and waves goodnight instead.

Kate shuts the door louder than necessary, collapses onto her butt, and groans into her hands.

Some tall guys in suits come to check out production the next day. Kate is having trouble keeping her crush in check after last night; she's tickling Kristen and their eyes meet for a beat too long, and her hands go slack on Kristen's waist, and then she remembers they're on camera and she instinctively jumps away.

She pulls out another couple of flirty lines on autopilot, until she realises she's being watched, and Paul jerks his head to tell her to _knock it off_. Melissa reaches over and squeezes her hand and takes over, ad-libbing about a body in the hearse.

Kate takes a deep breath and tries to focus on being Holtzmann.

Kristen, Kate, and Paul are hauled into a meeting with the production execs and they're basically told to _knock it off_ for real, it's _bad enough that they're women, making them gay would be too complicated_.

Paul and Kristen get into a heated argument with them while Kate sits back.

She's not going to get upset; she's a professional. But it's a definite possibility. Kristen reaches over and covers her hand with her own while she continues to gesture wildly with the other. Kate blinks hard a few times to hold back tears.

Kristen tosses _homophobia_ and _the media_ into the argument and the execs draw themselves up and begin citing clauses of their non-disclosure agreement, and Kate tunes out until Kristen throws her hands up and storms out.

They shoot a few takes where Kate's not crazy flirtatious and Kristen's her normal awkward Erin Gilbert to appease the real-life Jennifer Lynch character sent to oversee them, and when she's finally gone, they continue as they were before.

Paul takes them out to lunch to apologise.

When Kate sees the final cut of the film later, with Melissa and Kristen and Leslie sitting rigid beside her, and the rest of the team gathered around too, they clutch each other's hands, both terrified and elated. Kate's pleased to see that a lot of her subtle flirtatiousness has made it into the film.

It's a huge weight off her chest, because she knows that queer girls will recognise themselves in her character, and that's all she really wants. She wants those girls to feel seen in a way that she never got to be, and she ugly cries for two minutes in the bathroom when the showing is over, because she wants all those girls out there to know that women are funny and smart and that they can be queer and fat and that even when they're not taken seriously, they are _important_.

_September 2015_

When they wrap filming in September, the four of them collapse into a huddle next to the hearse and hug for a good five minutes. Kate's nose is pressed into Kristen's armpit and her hand is on Leslie's right boob and Melissa is holding onto her hair. They babble goodbyes and promises to keep in touch and inside jokes while the set is packed down around them.

The costuming staff congratulate them and Melissa pulls out the ostentatious gift baskets she's arranged for them, and the team in turn present them with their jumpsuits.

Kate cherishes hers – she keeps it in the back of her wardrobe, and when she needs to remember that she's done at least one good thing in her life, she takes it out and puts her face on it to smell the never-quite-washed-out scent of slime. When she thinks that her political impressions and endless rotation of boring heterosexual characters on SNL might be a net negative for the world, she remembers _Ghostbusters_. It never fails to bring her to tears, because she knows she's done _something_ good.

The same night that filming finishes, Kristen kisses her for the first time.

After the after-party, Melissa finally, gently, kicks the three of them out of her apartment into the wee hours of the morning. Kristen is so drunk that she lists sideways, clutching Kate's arm, as they take the elevator to the ground floor. Leslie bids them a quick goodbye, hugging and kissing both of them, and hails an Uber.

Kristen turns to Kate, but her ankle twists and she falls heavily, catching Kate's shoulder to steady herself. Kate stops breathing when she finds their faces only a few inches apart.

She remembers every moment that Kristen and Melissa feinted kissing on set, remembers every moment that she found an excuse to touch Kristen during filming, and finally admits to herself that her crush on Kristen hasn't ebbed quite as far as she thought it had.

And before she has time to think about the fact that she is, maybe, a little bit in love with Kristen Wiig, Kristen is kissing her, sloppy, wet, leaving lipstick smears down her cheek.

And _god help her_ , Kate kisses back.

And then she flies back to New York the next day, ready for a couple of weeks off before SNL starts again. She goes completely off-grid, switching her phone off and only messaging Emily to let her know she's okay. She doesn't want to hear Kristen's polite and hesitant proclamations of heterosexuality, and she doesn't want to read more into it than a drunken experiment. She's had her heart broken by enough straight girls to know that she doesn't need or want whatever Kristen thinks this is.

Finally, Leslie practically smashes down the door to her apartment and drags her out for coffee. "Are you okay?" she asks as she hugs Kate. She eyes Kate's sweatpants and stained Columbia tee combo with suspicion.

Kate plasters on a smile and nods. "Just recovering, you know?"

She knows that Leslie knows that that's not the whole story, but with a rare moment of insight, she lets it go and instead says, "We have to do reshoots," and Kate flinches.

"Really?"

"Do you _ever_ check your messages?" Leslie rolls her eyes.

Kate nods listlessly, and although Leslie shoots her another sharp look that says, _I know you're not telling me something, McKinnon_ , her chatter about various colleagues and a couple of projects she's been offered carry them through the afternoon.

Kate nods along, trying to smile at appropriate moments and actually listen to what Leslie says, and trying _not_ to think about Kristen and what happened and what's going to happen now.

Because they still have to do those reshoots, and the press junket, and the red carpet appearances, and Kristen and Melissa will undoubtably want to hang out when they're in New York, and all she sees in her future is a futile crush that she'll never quite get over, because Kristen is _the_ Kristen Wiig, and she's one of Kate's best friends, and and and…

_October 2015 – March 2016_

But then there's an entire season of SNL, which flies by. Her crush starts to fade without the constant contact with Kristen. Melissa hosts an episode towards the end of the season. It's _epic_ and Kristen flies in the Sunday after the show so that they can all go out for lunch, but Kate fakes a stomach bug and stays home instead so she doesn't have to see her.

She's dozing on the couch when there's a hesitant knock on her door. She gets up and peers through the peephole to see Kristen.

_Fuck_. She can't pretend she's not at home now, can she?

She opens the door slowly.

"Hi," she says.

"Hey, there, kiddo." Kristen smiles shyly. "I brought you some soup. How are you doing?" She hugs her.

Kate makes a feeble attempt to push her off – "I'll make you sick!" – and Kristen rolls her eyes, ferreting around in the kitchen for a couple of bowls and divvying up the soup.

They sit on the couch together and eat vegetarian noodle soup and watch reruns of _Gossip Girl_. Kate is starting to feel like maybe this will be okay. Kristen hasn't mentioned the kiss, and maybe she doesn't even remember it. Maybe they can go back to being friends and comedians, with no _other_ drama.

Kristen's feet curl under her legs, and she rests her face on the armrest. Kate keeps sneaking looks at her out of the corner of her eyes. A couple of times, Kristen catches her eye and half-smiles.

Well, whatever else happens, she knows that her crush hasn't gone away. That half-smile catches her insides and melts them in the most pleasant way.

Eventually, Kristen nods off, and Kate stands up slowly and stretches, switching off the TV and chucking out the trash. She sits at the end of the couch and just watches Kristen's eyelashes flutter as she dozes.

She knows it's a little weird, and it's highly inappropriate to stare at a (ex) colleague while they're sleeping, but she just can't take her eyes off the way Kristen looks when she's really, truly relaxed.

When Kristen wakes up, she pats the couch next to her and Kate scoots over, too close for comfort, and Kristen says breathily, "You're not really sick, are you?"

Kate shakes her head slowly, ghosting her fingers over Kristen's, and then they're kissing again, Kristen's mouth desperately working over hers like she's studying something, and Kate digs her fingers into the back of Kristen's head and tugs her hair gently and Kristen moans and as she pushes Kate back onto the couch, she jumps up, hand over her mouth, eyes wide and cheeks flushed.

"I'm sorry. I have to go."

And she runs out of the apartment, leaving Kate panicked and sexually frustrated and _alone_.

_May 2016 – September 2016_

Kate wants to call and ask _what the hell was that all about_ , but she's too proud. And then it's been too long to really say anything, and she and Kristen don't text and don't really say anything to each other in the group text, until they have to do the reshoots, the press junket, the appearances on Graham Norton, on Ellen, on Jimmy Kimmel.

During the reshoots, she and Kristen seem to reach a mutual agreement to pretend like nothing ever happened, and they avoid spending time together alone. Kate misses their easy friendship from the early days of _Ghostbusters_ and she often thinks of things she'd like to share with Kristen because Kristen would find them uniquely funny, but she doesn't. Instead she spends a lot of time with Leslie, whom she thinks suspects what happened but doesn't pry.

For the press junket, she's fortunately paired with Leslie, because they have great chemistry (and because their SNL shooting schedules line up perfectly, of course), so she doesn't have to worry about Kristen. When she's asked about her sexuality in an interview and is told not to answer, she smooths it over and then has a breakdown in the bathroom.

She can faintly hear Leslie arguing with the PR person, and all she wants to do is call Kristen and tell her everything, but she can't do that, so she dabs the tears off her face and holds wet paper towels under her eyes and comes back out to finish the last three interviews of the day. Her make-up person fusses over her when she comes out of the bathroom, and she squeezes Kate's shoulder gently as she blends a little more concealer over her red nose. Kate smiles wanly.

For the promos with all four of them, she positions herself as far away from Kristen as she can and tries to avoid talking with her too much. It doesn't take long for Leslie and Melissa to figure out that something is going on, and they conspire to put Kristen and Kate in the middle of them on _Ellen_.

Kate's heart is nearly beating out of her chest, and she leans into Leslie as close as she can. When Kristen feints at kissing Melissa again, she has to take a large sip of cold water to ground herself. She feels a little dizzy.

Her jokes are off-colour, nothing is going right, she hates stilettos and she hates goddamn fucking hair extensions and she _hates_ peach dresses, which she _knows_ the publicist demanded she wear so that she doesn't seem too gay, which is ridiculous, because they're on goddamn fucking _Ellen_. She takes her water glass and digs her fingers into it to ground herself.

She huddles into Kristen at one point and her perfume smells sweet and soothing and Kate hiccups under her breath. She leaves her arm around Kristen and laughs hysterically at Kristen's joke about umpiring the scientology baseball team. Leslie squeezes her shoulder.

They talk about Chris Hemsworth and she feels everyone tense up around her, Kristen leaning back into her ever so slightly. She says something flippant about him and they move on.

After the interview, Melissa and Leslie mysteriously melt away, leaving her to face Kristen in her uncomfortable shoes and fake lashes. The production assistants hustle around them and Ellen's somewhere around here, and she can't think of any situation she'd rather be in _less_ than this one, right now.

Kristen looks at her and she can't look back. She stares at the ground instead.

"So…" Kristen says, and Kate can't bear it, she can't bear to get crushed by Kristen _fucking_ Wiig, so she just deflects.

"Christ, I hate heels," she says, bending down to peel them off.

Kristen's face falls, and then she plasters a smile on, and nods, and says, "I know!"

Then the heels are hanging from Kate's hand and she's staring into Kristen's face and she can't quite read what's going on, but she seems crestfallen and it makes Kate's heart beat harder with hope for a second.

"I'm sorry, I have to-" and Kristen turns and bolts. Again.

Kate feels a hole open up in her chest and she fiddles with the strap on her heel for a second before she turns away and goes to thank Ellen.

Later that night, they've arranged to go out for drinks, but when Kate is already at the restaurant and waiting for the others, Leslie and Melissa cancel. She's about to stand up and pretend that she was never here, when she sees Kristen and Kristen sees her. Kristen smiles and waves distantly as she talks to the maître d'. 

When she sits down, she fiddles with her napkin.

"Leslie and Melissa cancelled," Kate blurts without any preamble.

Kristen flinches.

Kate looks anywhere but at her face.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry," Kristen says. "What happened… wasn't fair. I shouldn't have done it."

Kate nods. This is exactly what she wanted to avoid. "It's fine," she says, avoiding Kristen's eye. "It's not the first time it's happened," she says, trying to joke but coming off a little bitter, she knows.

Kristen bites her lip. "I'm still sorry, okay? Can we… can we just be friends?" She pauses for a second before continuing. "I really, actually like you."

Kate sighs lightly. Maybe they can just put it to the side. Kristen's right. "Yeah." She nods. "Yeah. I think you're pretty cool too," she jokes.

Kristen grins, wriggles her shoulders and flags down the waitress. She shares a look with Kate and then orders for both of them, requesting a bottle of white wine _as soon as possible_.

The waitress obliges, and they get a little tipsy, but not handsy, and everything's fine.

Everything's fine.

Everything's fine.

_August-September 2016_

Her agent forwards her another script, this time for an all-female bachelorette party gone wrong. She laughs out loud a lot, and she agrees to do it. Then she has to learn an Australian accent, which is a fun challenge, and she learns a lot about Australia and New Zealand from the podcasts she listens to. Her SNL castmates get so bored of hearing her repeat words with various Aussie emphases and cadences that she finally gets an office to herself.

And in fact, _Rough Night_ is an awesome experience, but she misses being queer on screen. She's glad that there's no romance storyline for her, and she thinks Pippa is an interesting character – the kind of girl that everyone knows, but that no one ever invites to a bachelorette party, in fact. The cast becomes very tight-knit, just like they did on _Ghostbusters_ , but there's no blurred lines between any of them, just wholesome platonic love. Jillian Bell in particular is the first person Kate goes to when she has a rough day. They're very similar in their homebody tendencies, and when they're tired and stressed, they fantasize about buying a working farm together.

Kate wants to fall in love with Jillian and she wants to get over Kristen, and she knows if she tried harder, she could probably convince Jillian that she was into women, but she's still hung up on whatever happened with Kristen, so she doesn't bother, and instead she and Jillian form a solid friendship. They text cute animal pics and videos back and forth and Kate sends Jillian gardening tips and Jillian sends Kate space facts.

She hooks up with Zoë Kravitz, but it's not intense, just sexy and satisfying. She knows she's not going to think about it forever. Zoë pulls her jeans on afterwards and tells her to text her if she's ever in town.

Kate nods, and knows that she won't.

As a joke, she composes a dramatic ballad about the movie plot and records it for them while slightly drunk one night. She underestimates their reaction wildly – they send her back a voice memo of them cheering, and they end up putting it in the movie.

When the cast watch the final cut together, they cry over the song. Kate waves away everyone's compliments, but secretly she's really happy about it. It's a wholesome end to a not-so-wholesome movie.

When she gets out of the fog of filming and goes back to her apartment, she spends 48 hours lying in bed and recovering, then she makes herself get up and go to the grocery store to stock up on cat food, toilet paper, and ready-made meals before SNL starts again. She gets recognised on the subway even in her ugly Columbia tee and leggings, and she obligingly takes a photo with the two girls. In the store, she catches the eye of a gaggle of what she assumes are newly minted Columbia kids, given their fresh-faced appearance and ubiquitous lanyards. She gives a brief half-smile, assuming they recognise her as alumni, and goes back to piling apples in her basket. They too ask her for a photo and although she rolls her eyes to herself, she obligingly smiles for them.

"We really loved Ghostbusters," they tell her earnestly, and she blinks in surprise. She's only ever been recognised for SNL before. "Thanks," she says brightly, and "Good luck for your first year!"

When she steps out to the barricades after the first episode of Season 42, she realises that the grocery store wasn't the half of it. There's about forty teenage girls in a motley assortment of pride merch, _Ghostbusters_ merch, and they're all waving their phones at her. She turns to Leslie in panic and mouths, _what_?

Leslie shrugs back at her and gives her a look that plainly says, _I told you so_.

She sighs and dives in, taking selfies and complimenting the outfits and the commitment of the girls, even though she's dead on her feet. Aidy sees that it's getting a bit too much, and joins her, taking a couple of selfies too, before she pulls Kate away.

That's what makes her start to regret what she did with Holtzmann now. She's been propelled to near-goddess status among young queer women and it's starting to get old. She questions whether it's right not to be a better role model for them, like she wishes she'd had growing up.

She doesn't talk about her sexuality, she takes on heterosexual roles in films, she doesn't do activism in the public spotlight, she doesn't give any life advice, she won't use social media.

Emily reminds her over and over again that she doesn't owe anyone anything, but she kind of feels like she _does_.

One night after SNL, she goes out to the barricades and a shy teenager hands her a letter and a painting wrapped around each other. She doesn't ask for a selfie or an autograph, just hands Kate the letter and says, "Thank you for everything."

Kate smiles back at her and says, "Thank you!" and she tries to think of something else to say, because it seems momentous that someone's there at the barricades but doesn't want something from her, but she's super tired, and so she just nods at the girl and moves onto the next one to take a hyena selfie with them.

The letter turns out to be a long confessional.

She writes about how Kate's portrayal of Holtzmann was the first time she'd ever seen a character like her on screen, and that it saved her from committing suicide, and that she finally got the courage to come out to her parents and even though they reacted badly, she's freer now.

She cries.

And, yeah, Kate sometimes thinks about the kiss with Kristen, but she and Kristen are starting to have a normal friendship, with Kristen sending through dumb videos she thinks Kate will enjoy, and Kate sending her silly voices. She calls Kristen to talk about the barricades, and Kristen is plainly out of her depth being asked about Kate's _gay identity_ , so Kate gives up and writes a journal entry instead.

Then she starts dating Jackie. It's almost an accident, a series of happy coincidences, starting with a party and ending the same night with Jackie stroking Nino in Kate's bed as she makes them vegan pancakes.

Aidy gets proposed to, and Kate is overflowing with joy and a little bit of jealousy. Aidy is radiantly happy when they go out for brunch to celebrate. Kate toasts her with a glass of sparkling grape juice and the rest of the girls follow suit.

They all get teary reminiscing about their relationships and Aidy's relationship and someone cries when they watch a video of a pug sneezing.

Kate feels oddly disconnected from it all.

She's nominated for an Emmy – her fourth nomination – and it doesn't really occur to her that she might actually win until they call her name and then there's the jolt of adrenaline like nothing else and all she can think as she makes her way up to the stage is _don't trip don't trip don't trip_ , then she searches for someone she knows in the audience and she can't find anyone and it's really intense and she kind of blacks out and she doesn't really remember any of it.

Jimmy tells her that she did okay a week later, and she manages to make it funny, but she's never really felt the pressure of exactly how successful she is until the interview with Jimmy, and afterwards, she plays nice with Jimmy and his team and inside she's screaming, panicking, in shock.

_November 2016_

On Kristen's episode of season 42, Aidy pitches a fucking Whiskers R We sketch, and Kate's never turned down an opportunity to be groped by a woman before, so she can't very well shoot it down, even though she can tell that Kristen's a little uncomfortable with it too.

Dress is horrendously awkward, but Kate feels a little protected by the heavy make up and ridiculous outfit, and when she glances at Kristen out of the corner of her eye, Kristen mouths, "Flapjack!" and the tension melts away.

Kate mouths back, "Thank you."

Whiskers R We makes a splash in the audience, and Kristen is even handsier than the pitch suggested. It's hard to focus when she puts both hands over Kate's boobs – the kitten in her hands squeals as she reflexively clenches her hands. She has to squeeze her eyes closed to get her line out, and when she catches Kristen's eye again, she's smirking happily.

Somehow it makes it all the way through dress into the live show.

They do spectacularly, and Kate can't help but gasp breathily when Kristen tweaks her real nipple instead of the padded bra, but she knows the audience loves it when she breaks. So she closes her eyes and ignores Kristen's wandering hands, and focuses on her cue card.

After the episode, Jackie hugs her possessively, like she senses Kristen trying to stake a claim on Kate, and they have a couple drinks with the cast and Kristen hugs her too long when they say goodnight and go home.

Jackie fucks her hard and fast and Kate comes hard and fast thinking about Kristen, and then she lies awake for hours after Jackie has fallen asleep, tossing everything over and over in her head.

_November 2016_

Somehow, they become each other's rocks. It's an almost-secret affair. They send each other clips of ridiculous noises from the kids' movies they're voicing. Kristen starts dating a guy and Kate endures hours of analysis about him, while she's on the subway and cooking dinner and in her office at Studio 8H.

She calls Kristen in tears after her first real fight with Jackie. Their friendship feels good, like a real adult friendship, like they're just best friends – except that no one knows about it. Jackie is oblivious, Kristen's boyfriend thinks she's talking to her sister, and Emily knows something's going on but can't pin down what.

And it's the secrecy that gnaws at Kate. She shouldn't have to hide a _friend_ from Jackie.

It makes her feel dirty, like she's cheating.

But it's still Kristen she calls the night that Trump wins, Kristen she calls when she has a panic attack in the communal bathroom at Studio 8H after someone assaults her on the subway, and Kristen who's waiting behind the curtains to hold her when she collapses after performing _Hallelujah_.

The election week is a nightmare – the cast and writers watch the coverage together on Tuesday, and no one cracks jokes or writes down sketches, and a fair few people cry. Kate keeps trying to wake herself up from this nightmare situation that she's somehow gotten herself into.

She has to _parody_ Hillary's loss.

She remembers crying when she thought she might have to play the first female President on SNL. What a fucking joke.

When the final results come in, only Kate, Vanessa, and Colin are left in the room. Lorne told everyone that they could go home whenever they wanted, and they've trickled out in twos and threes over the course of the night.

Colin switches the TV off and the ringing silence is too much. Vanessa is crying softly. Colin mutely shreds a piece of paper. Kate feels a chill run down her spine and then a wave of nausea washes over her.

She runs to the bathroom and throws up, trying to picture Saturday night and at the same time trying to push the idea from her head. She gags until her eyes fill with tears and then she's properly crying, leaning against the toilet, and Vanessa and Colin come in and huddle on the floor with her, whispering comforting words until Colin gets up and calls cabs for both of them.

She wants to ask Vanessa to stay over, but they'll need to be at work early tomorrow, and her couch isn't that comfortable, so she waves forlornly at Vanessa as her cab pulls away. She calls Kristen instead, barely able to speak, and Kristen talks her down from another full-blown panic attack and convinces her to take Advil and a Xanax and go to bed.

On Wednesday, Chris, Sarah, and Lorne meet with Kate. She's red-eyed and wearing a big hoodie and sweats. She hasn't spoken to anyone since last night, ignoring Kristen's call back and Jackie's five attempts to call her. She's texted them both brief apologies.

Chris is red-eyed too, and Sarah looks exhausted.

"What are we going to do?"

Kate shakes her head again. "I-" Her eyes fill with tears again. She wants to say she can't do it.

Lorne eyes her and she raises her chin. She has a duty, not necessarily to herself or to America, but to _Hillary_. Hillary made her career, and Kate won't let her down now.

"I don't know what to do, but we have to do something."

Chris and Sarah nod. They wave Kate away, and she curls herself into a corner of the table at the pitch meeting.

They finally settle on _Hallelujah_ when news of Leonard Cohen's death breaks, and when Kate settles herself at the piano to perform for the cast, she feels like her hands are a world away.

She loses herself in the music, inhabiting Hillary as fully as she can, not missing a beat. She's been playing _Hallelujah_ since she was in grade school. When she finishes, the whole cast is in tears. Aidy and Vanessa wrap her in a hug and Kate lets herself cry a little, too.

Lorne gives her a firm nod.

And that's that.

After she performs it at dress, she hangs over the piano, gasping for breath, until Vanessa pulls her away so they can rearrange the stage.

She doesn't know if she can do it. She's overwhelmed at how utterly momentous a task this is. She vividly remembers the coverage of the 2000 elections on SNL, and she's about to do that for a whole new generation. Mix that up with the _Ghostbusters_ sexism drama, the close election race, her newfound fame, and Leonard Cohen's death, and she suspects that she's about to be #1 trending on YouTube.

Which is terrifying.

She goes through the motions for the rest of the dress rehearsal, feeling like a dead man walking.

She barely remembers her performance after the live show, but her castmates are sobbing in the wings as she stumbles off the stage and back to hair and make-up. Kristen catches her as she trips over, and she cries into her shoulder.

Then she's pushed around to her sketches for the evening, and afterwards, although she can tell Kristen wants to talk to her, she waves her away and escapes to her apartment, where she falls into bed and finally, _finally_ sleeps for the first time in three weeks.

_November 2016 – May 2017_

After that, things start to get hard. She steps back from SNL for a couple weeks, but she loves what she does, and eventually she starts finding parodies other than Hillary to hang her hat on.

She even gets properly fatigued, maybe even burnt out, for the first time ever. She's working hard on SNL, lining up work for the summer, dealing with the aftermath of the election and her newfound fame from _Ghostbusters_ and her Hillary impression. She's now acutely aware of her teetering celebrity status, but what weighs on her mind the most is her near-goddess status among queer girls. For a while it was fun, dropping jokes about her lesbianism that wouldn't be noticed by most people – _gone fishing_ , the lesbian salute, her continuing obsession with handicrafts and cats – but she's beginning to realise that a lot of young girls are giving her actions meanings that she _did not_ intend and it's kind of scary.

When she goes out to the barricades after episodes, she's assaulted by the wall of girls, still, handing her gifts and cards and Holtzmann figurines and drawings, and telling her how much her _existence_ affects them. It weighs heavily on her heart, and she doubles down on her decision not to have social media. Emily reports a heavy uptick in her followers and Kate requests that she not post about them, because she doesn't want people getting creepy on her sister.

As she gets more and more drained, it gets too hard to return missed calls, so she lets them slide. Emily reverts to texting, and her mom calls over and over until she picks up. Jackie makes a fuss about it and Kate makes an effort to at least text her if she can't call, so they're okay, even if they keep missing each other with their busy schedules. The one who suffers most is Kristen. Kate can't bring herself to respond to her missed calls or texts, and she ignores anything from Melissa and everyone who isn't Aidy, Vanessa, Emily, her mom, or Jackie.

She wants to direct stuff or write stuff and she wants to move to a cabin in the woods and never see another person and she's horny as _fuck_ all the time and she has wild, wild mood swings and sometimes she never wants to see another goddamned script or sketch outline, and one day she ends up yelling at a writers' meeting until she claps her hands over her mouth and runs out of the room.

She waits on tenterhooks for two days for Lorne to tell her she's fired, but instead Aidy, Cecily, and Vanessa take her out for dumplings and give her an intervention, which mainly involves her agreeing to see a medical professional.

She does, and things start to brighten up a bit after that.

Emily and Aidy tag team her, someone always checking in on her. Jackie is supportive, but she's not around like Emily and Aidy are – she's always flying across the country or working early mornings or whatever, and of course the SNL schedule isn't accommodating or flexible at all.

Aidy and Kate grow even closer over season 42, and Kate is desperately grateful for her loyalty. She's funny (of course), but she's also seen Kate at her worst and she still accepts her oddities and quirks.

They've always bounced wild comedic ideas off each other, but now they talk about other things too – science facts, their dreams, childhood memories, Aidy's partner. Lots of these discussions make it into sketches: the blobfish, the talking dolphin, the Christmas Candle. They spend a lot of time people-watching Rockefeller Plaza and making up backstories for the passers-by, and some of them make it into sketches, too: the woman with a matted braid down to her waist, the drunk girl in Mickey Mouse ears at 8 in the morning on a Thursday, the confused tourist like a bobbing turd in the flow of New Yorkers.

Now that she feels better, she summons up the energy to listen to Kristen's voice messages. They start out worried, veer into annoyed, then back to concerned, and then, finally, resigned. A million shades of guilt colour Kate and her hands shake as she tries to compose an apology. Finally she puts down her phone and takes a deep breath.

She just can't do it.

So she doesn't.

_July 2017_

Season 42 meanders on, and then it's finished, and she starts on _The Spy Who Dumped Me_ , which is a fantastic experience. Budapest is a really interesting city, and on her occasional breaks, she makes time to visit museums and art galleries and she listens to podcasts about European architecture. She learns so much.

Mila quickly becomes one of her closest friends – while she's ensconced in a bathroom stall or a tiny closet, pumping milk, Kate will sit outside and tell her random facts and jokes and try out new lines for the film on her.

It's nice to have someone who's so uncomplicated and down to earth in her life, and so she tries to forget about the stack of missed calls from Kristen, about the cracks appearing in her relationship with Jackie, and about the anxiety that thrums at her heart when she thinks about returning to the US. Instead she focusses on the movie, on Mila, on Mila's family, on Ivanna and Sam and Justin, and even on Gillian Anderson.

One night, when she and Mila are hanging out together, and it's late and a candle is flickering on the coffee table between them, Kate voices one of her deepest fears: that she's fundamentally unlikeable. She's always been the oddball on the edge of the group, the funny one with the too-big smile and the scrappy hair, the _one gay friend_.

She remembers high school and never quite fitting in the way the normal girls did, and she remembers college and feeling like she'd found her people, and the exquisite euphoria of being on _The Big Gay Sketch Show_ , and then the deep depression of telemarketing and scraping by and auditioning auditioning auditioning and always wondering if she was too gay or not gay enough or if she would ever do anything meaningful with her life.

But here she is once again with a co-star, feeling like this is the most intense friendship she's ever had, but she knows they're going to drift apart in six months like they were never together, and it makes her panic.

"Do you always form intense relationships with your co-stars and then… after a while, does it just… fade? I feel like I'm losing all these friends, and, I, just… is that just what being an actress is like?" It's not the most eloquent sentence she's ever said, and it's not exactly what she wanted to say, but Mila considers her, like she knows there's something deep going on in Kate's mind.

Although Mila is the same age as her, she has two children, she's married, she's been in more films than Kate can name… somehow she feels like she has the wisdom of the world that Kate didn't get, while she was busy being funny and then unemployed.

Not that Mila would agree at all.

Mila sighs. "Sometimes, you click with people, and you're with them like 24/7 for the filming and the press… and then life gets busy and you're working with other people, and you don't talk for a year. It's just the way it is."

Kate sighs back. "Thank you."

Mila hugs her, and Kate manages to relax a modicum.

The one blip on _The Spy Who Dumped Me_ is, surprisingly, Gillian Anderson.

When Gillian Anderson arrives on set, Kate feels sick. Mila has teased her about her video – the most embarrassing thing on the internet, the video where she asks Gillian Anderson to call her. When she had read that Gillian was attracted to women in an interview in 2012, she had felt _so_ guilty, but still reassured that Gillian would probably never see it, because Kate was still pretty much a nobody.

And then she catches her eye across the room when Gillian walks in and she knows. She's seen it. She feels like she might actually throw up, and Mila puts a hand on her forehead. "You're all sweaty," she says.

Kate doesn't say anything.

She had to bring it up with her, somehow.

They find themselves in the bathroom alone together later that day. Gillian smiles tightly and turns to leave after she dries her hands.

"Wait," Kate manages to get out. She takes another deep breath. "I wanted to apologise," she says.

Gillian stops and waits. Kate looks anywhere but directly at her.

"I'm really sorry. The video was… inappropriate. I wanted to say that I just want to have a completely professional relationship with you."

Gillian nods.

"It's okay. I get it," she says.

Kate bites her lip. "Thanks."

She doesn't look at Gillian for the rest of the day and the first day they film together, she pops twice the recommended dose of Xanax to get through it.

But Gillian goes out of her way to be perfectly courteous and professional, and Kate finds her personality a bit again, and so everything turns out okay.

_August 2017_

Just after they film in Amsterdam, she has to go on the _Rough Night_ press junket. It's nice to see everyone again, and they catch up in ten-minute dribs and drabs and their rushed lunch breaks. They all congratulate Kate on her Emmy nomination and her performance of _Hallelujah_ , and she finally opens up to _Ilana_ , of all people, about her feelings for Kristen and what's going on with Jackie and about Hillary and Trump and the election.

Maybe she chooses Ilana because she wants to be judged, because Ilana is so open and active in the political space, because she lives her life so differently to Kate, but she doesn't judge at all. She nods and listens and makes them both iced coffees with a splash of whiskey. Ilana runs her fingers through Kate's hair and tells her that maybe it's time to let go of Kristen.

The press junket is exhausting, and she feels guilty because whoever gets them at the end of the day is getting them at their weariest and most irritable. They try to be upbeat and interesting for each new person, but there's only so many ways they can ask "what would you do at a bachelorette party?" and there's only so many ways they can answer.

One interview in particular sticks with her: it's with a clueless interviewer who asks them what their first movie experience with a guy was. The silence is deafening, and the rest of the girls make various facial expressions, and she knows they're trying to think of a way to defuse the situation.

Kate lets the others field it, not wanting to make a fuss, but she's touched at the way Scarlett checks in with her, Jillian squeezes her thigh, and Zoë jumps in to save her.

They all seem to breathe a sigh of relief when the conversation flows around Scarlett's tale, but everyone tenses up immediately when the interviewer _goes back_ to Kate. Zoë mutters, _read the room_ to Ilana, and Ilana tries to intervene, but Kate just says she doesn't remember because she doesn't want the interview to become a viral coming out video, and they move on.

She's extra nice to the interviewer at the end, and once she's left, the girls cluster around Kate and Zoë squeezes her hand tightly.

"It's fine, you guys. No biggie."

Scarlett shoots her a look that says, _sure_ , but Ilana shows them all a dumb cat picture that Abby messaged her, and they move on.

_September 2017_

She's nominated, and wins, an Emmy again. She's more prepared this time, but it's still a shock when she actually wins. She takes Jackie, and when she's giving her speech, tells her she loves her, and the whole time she's walking up to the stage this time, the chords to Hallelujah beat through her mind.

She's been feeling the pressure of everything more acutely, and she ends up in a mud-slinging fight with Jackie that night – she's exhausted, and overwhelmed, and feeling anxious about debuting her relationship, and Jackie says something about how her speech could've been better, and she loses it. She sleeps on the couch in their hotel room, mascara tracked down her face and on the pillow she snatches from the bed, and she can hear both her own and Jackie's sobs as she drifts off to sleep.

She wakes up cradled in Jackie's arms in the bed and they apologise to each other when they're properly awake, but something has soured between them, and between the pressures of season 43 and Jackie's fledgling photography career, their relationship slowly falls apart into shared take-out, ignoring texts and voicemails, and bitter fights with slow make-up sex.

Not to mention, the four women from _Ghostbusters_ have slowly fallen out of touch – Melissa and Kristen are busy in L.A., and Leslie and Kate are deep in SNL, but then Leslie leaves, and Kate's getting all these new opportunities, and suddenly _she's_ the new Kristen and people are writing thinkpieces about her and her agent recommends negotiating a salary increase.

Things are spiralling fast and she wants Kristen to take her out for coffee and tell her what happened after she left SNL, because she thinks she has to leave soon, and her life is moving so fast but at the same time has completely stalled. She starts ignoring calls from Mila, from Melissa, even from Aidy: pretty much anyone who isn't Emily or her agent. She declines a couple of projects that her agent thinks she's crazy to turn down, and she accepts two that she gets reamed out for accepting.

_November 2017 – May 2018_

Another season of Saturday Night Live – Bobby, Vanessa, and Sasheer leave, which is sad, but the newbies are pretty interesting, and although Kate misses them, she's surprised at how quickly she falls out of touch with Vanessa in particular.

Just another one of those intense friendships that passes by, she supposes.

She splits up with Jackie, and it's for the best, she knows, but it still hurts. She wants to call Kristen and tell her all about it, but she settles on blurting it all out to Zoë when she pops by for an episode three days after they break up. Kate downs two drinks in twenty minutes and spills her guts to Zoë at the after-party, leaning into her shoulder. She feels the warmth of Zoë's body and knows that Zoë is thinking about fucking her, and she wishes she was up for a rebound, but instead they split a huge pizza and Kate analyses every minute of her break-up while Zoë nods understandingly.

Melissa drops by for an episode, but Kristen doesn't fly to New York to see them, and Kate, Leslie, and Melissa go out for lunch on Sunday, trading stories about Saturday Night Live, recent projects, and Melissa's two adorable kids. Kate feels better about everything after that: she begins to understand that filming is intense and people get busy when they're not together 24/7, but that doesn't mean that they can't remain real friends.

_2018_

2018 brings Emily back into her life. They've drifted apart as Kate's been so busy, but when they finally meet up and catch up over a mammoth round of deep-dish vegetarian pizza, they start reminiscing about their childhood fantasy lands, and then Kate puts it all together.

"Wait!" she says, lightly tapping Emily's arm. "We can do this!" She grins. She's just gotten an offer from Lorne to do an audio comedy and she's been mulling over some ideas.

Emily is thrilled when she explains it to her.

"Political satire, medieval comedy, Shrek vibes, horny queen, identity-consumed raven," Emily sums it up. They've sketched out a plot in the past four hours. They high-five and lie down on the floor, feet touching. 

_May 2018_

She wants Kristen to voice someone in it, and one day she finally gets up the courage to text her about it, even though she's ignored at least twenty calls from her in the past eighteen months.

She gets left on read, and it stings more than she's willing to admit.

_You brought this on yourself, Kathryn McKinnon Berthold_ , she scolds herself. She's too proud to call Kristen and explain to her that everything was too much, that she was ashamed, so she lets herself get caught up in _Heads Will Roll_ , and they somehow manage to book Meryl Streep. She and Emily jump around for five minutes when they get the call, and call their mother to tell her.

_Heads Will Roll_ keeps her busy, not to mention shooting for _Bombshell_ and _Yesterday_. Slowly the rawness of whatever happened with Kristen is reduced to a dull ache that only hurts when she is drunk and alone.

_Late 2018_

And that's when it happens. She's up late on a Sunday working on a sketch with Allison, the new writer, and Allison is dragging her feet around on the floor, showing her how to position herself, and it's so late and everything's getting blurry, and Kate realises that it's probably unethical given that Allison is a new writer and she's the star of the show, but Allison has been making bedroom eyes at her all day and she can't fucking take it so next time Allison leans over to drag her hand up to her brow, Kate leans in just the tiniest bit and kisses her questioningly.

Allison hesitates and then kisses her back firmly. And, knowing that no one is around, they have fast and furious sex on the office chair, with Kate kneeling between Allison's legs and bringing her to orgasm.

It doesn't go any further than that.

In August, she goes to a talk at Google with Mila to promote _The Spy Who Dumped Me_. It's pretty informal, but Mila dresses like she's going to a job interview, and Kate wears Converse, which is pretty characteristic of the pair of them.

They have fun.

The interviewer is obviously queer and obviously a fan of Kate's; she brings up the video of her trying to get Gillian Anderson to call her when she was younger, and Kate cringes about the interaction she had with Gillian on set.

Afterwards, she goes home, skipping out on Mila's invitation to lunch, and she feels so weirdly out-of-touch with everything that she lies on the floor of her apartment and lets herself cry into her hairline. She finally lets herself think about how she just wants to talk to Kristen.

But she can't, she's missed too many calls, and Kristen doesn't want to hear from her, and so she gets up and cracks open a beer and falls asleep on her couch with Nino digging his claws into her thighs.

_January 2019_

_Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner_ is a welcome relief.

Being so vulnerable on camera scares her, but it's a good experience, and she's happy to remember that people exist outside of the WASP New Yorker sect. She wishes fiercely to be part of a queer community, and she feels so fucking alone, and so she ends up calling up someone she knows from _The Spy Who Dumped Me_.

They have long, slow sex on the hotel floor, and all Kate can think about is how she's never really fit in anywhere, and as she goes through the motions of bringing the younger woman to orgasm, she thinks of her apartment in New York, and the way the sunlight filters over the hardwood floors, and Nino, and early morning yoga sessions with Emily, and late nights at SNL, and eating burgers with Aidy and Cecily while they cry with laughter, and actually crying at Aidy's wedding, and everything that's good about her life, and Ilana cries out, and Kate's crying.

She holds Kate close, but Kate can tell that she's out of her depth, and _jesus_ , she's only what? Twenty-one? So she pulls it together and apologises profusely and Ilana puts her pants back on and leaves.

And it's some ungodly hour in Los Angeles, or New York, or whereever Kristen is right now, but Kate can't help it, she picks up her phone and searches out her contact and hesitates before she presses call and presses the phone to her ear.

It rings out and Kate's really sobbing now, clutching her phone and her pillow to her chest in a ridiculous gesture, and then her phone vibrates, long, and she picks up and presses it to her ear.

"Kate?" Kristen says, voice rough with sleep, and Kate's crying still, and she knows Kristen can hear.

"Oh, honey," Kristen says, and her sympathy breaks the fucking sound barrier, and Kate cries herself out on her hotel room floor while Kristen murmurs sweet nothings to her.

Eventually she's just snuffling and she rubs her face raw with a handful of tissues, and Kristen asks her what's wrong, and Kate confesses everything to her.

It's so ridiculous – she knows nothing would have ever come of her and Kristen's drunken kiss, but it's become symptomatic of this all-encompassing alienation she feels with her life, the lack of any queer friends, the endless shitshow of politics, and the closest she's come to feeling normal was on _Heads Will Roll_ , but she feels too raw from that, like she put her heart and soul into the universe and no one looked back.

Kristen hums sympathetically and when she comforts Kate it sounds like she's crying too, and Kate wishes she'd never cut her out of her life.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry we fell out of touch."

Kristen sobs harder.

"I've missed you so much," Kate gasps.

"I know," Kristen murmurs. "I know." 

The next day she has to get up like she's fine and go around the markets and she can't keep a lid on the thoughts she's been thinking all night because she's so tired.

"I think it's the reason why I feel so driven, to scream out at people, 'This is me! Isn't it weird? What d'ya think?' and see if they think it's weird too," she says, trying to make it funny, but knowing that without the cover of some kind of persona, it's just coming off sad and pathetic.

"The struggle of whether to try to completely assimilate or to be alienated and really run with what makes you different – that tension is the genesis of any sort of meaningful creation."

These are her deepest, darkest fears, and she just lets them out on camera, and that night, she hides in her hotel room, gnawing on her pillow to fight off the waves of terror, and resists the urge to call Kristen again.

On her way back to America, she changes her ticket to LAX.

She gets off the plane, rumpled and ugly, with a massive coffee stain on her butt, and Kristen is there to meet her. She falls into her arms and feels herself tearing up at the comforting, still-familiar-after-five-years scent.

Kristen hustles her out of the airport fast, managing to miss most of the paparazzi, and takes her back to her place. She makes small talk about her life, recognising that Kate's not up for anything more. She introduces Kate to her fiancé and then tucks her into bed, where she sleeps for eighteen hours and wakes up starving and desperate to pee.

After she showers and dresses in clothes that will help her face the day – jeans, t-shirt, blazer, hair brushed up into a bun – she joins Kristen in the kitchen for breakfast.

Her fiancé is nowhere to be seen, and Kristen potters around making them both omelettes.

They eat together in silence. Kate sneaks looks at Kristen's face – she looks older, and Kate is struck by their age difference for the first time.

"Let's go talk in the lounge," Kristen says.

Kate follows her docilely, taking a seat on the couch and tucking her feet up automatically. Kristen slouches back and looks at her.

"I'm sorry," she starts.

Kate blinks. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't _apologies_.

"I'm sorry that I let what happened between us go, and I'm sorry that I kissed you, and I'm sorry that I led you on, and I'm sorry that I didn't try harder when you shut me out."

Kate gapes.

Kristen shrugs, looking down at her fingers twined in her lap.

"I'm sorry too," Kate says finally. "I'm sorry that I stopped returning your calls. I should've…"

"It's okay," Kristen says. "I forget, how much _younger_ you are." She puts a hand over Kate's. "You wanna catch a movie?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

_May 2019_

It started and ended with a kiss.

Kristen comes back to SNL and somehow works herself into a Last Call sketch, and Kate frowns at her, and Kristen shrugs.

In dress, Kate tries to avoid getting too close to her, and Kristen eyes her suspiciously afterwards, and she plays it off by saying she has a _bit of a sore throat_.

In the live show, Kristen somehow manages to get her tongue in Kate's mouth, and it shocks her enough that she breaks character for a second.

But surprisingly, it doesn't complicate her feelings that much. At the after-party, they dance together, and Cecily joins them, and when Kate tells them she's starving, they stumble out into a cab and order take-out to Kristen's hotel room. Her fiancé is staying in the bedroom, so they have to be quiet, but Cecily starts mocking lines from one of the sketches and they laugh so hard that Kate nearly pees herself.

It's good. They're okay.

Next week, she'll call Kristen about a minor inconvenience, and Kristen will tell her something stupid about her dog, and there's time and space between them, but Kate knows she'll always have a friend to come home to.


End file.
